Skimm got confused then, and looked at his coffee cup. “No, no, I didn’t mean that, nothing like that. I only meant–-” He ran down, not sure how to explain himself.
“Sure,” said Parker. He finished his coffee and got to his feet. “Let’s go out to the airport.”
“What time’s your plane?”
“Two-fifty.”
“We got time, then.”
“I want to go now.”
“Sure. Okay.” Skimm stood up and finished his coffee, gulping it down. He started to put the pint in his pocket, but Parker said, “Leave it. You’re going to be driving.”
“Okay. Sure.”
They went out to the car, and Parker drove to the airport. When he got out of the car, he said, “You let Stubbs get away, I’ll stomp you!”
“Don’t you worry,” said Skimm. “He won’t go nowhere.”
Parker walked away into the terminal.
Chapter 4
GOLDSBORO is small and pinch-faced, a backwater town on the Neuse River, surrounded by tobacco fields. There’s an air base nearby, and the State Hospital for Negro Insane. These, and cotton and fertilizer, are what the town lives on.
Parker got off the bus a little after ten, Saturday night. The workers and the airmen filled the streets. He pushed through and went into a diner where he got directions to the Double Ace Garage. It was too far to walk, so he went back to the tiny bus depot and took the only cab, an old black Chevrolet.
The Double Ace Garage was a long, low, shed-like construction of concrete blocks. It was painted a dirty white, with the name in red lettering over the wide doors at the front. Parker went inside to the office cubicle, stuck in the right-hand corner up front, and found a hairy florid stout man sitting in a swivel chair at a rolltop desk. He was smoking a cigar, and he left it in his mouth when he talked.
“I’m Flynn. Lawson sent me.”
“Yah,” said the florid man. He turned slightly, and the swivel chair squeaked drily. “He phoned.”
“Let’s see it,” Parker said.
“Yah. You’re in a hurry, huh?”
Parker waited.
The florid man grunted and heaved himself out of the chair. They went around to the side of the building, where there was a gravel lot. The truck was standing there, a nine-year-old Dodge cab and a Fruehauf trailer, lit by a floodlight on the side of the building. The trailer was metal colour and covered with grime, and the cab red. Some company name on the doors had been M painted out with a darker red. The engine was running.
Parker shook his head. He went over and opened the door on the driver’s side and reached up and turned the ignition key. The engine stopped. The florid man watched him, chewing slowly on his cigar, but Parker ignored him. He looked at the rubber all the way around. It was all lousy but at least there were no threads showing.
The mudguards were gone, and so were most of the safety lights. The window was broken in the right-hand door, and there was some sort of jury-rigged rope arrangement keeping cab and trailer together because the original hitch was broken. The floor mats were gone in the cab, showing where part of the metal flooring had rusted through.
Parker opened the trailer doors and saw that most of the wooden inner walls had been ripped out. He shook his head again and went around front to open the left side of the hood. The engine was a greasy mess, the wiring frayed, the radiator hoses cracked. The dip stick was gone, and so was the breather.
Parker closed the hood again, got down, and wiped his hands on the fender. Then he crawled under the cab. There was a large oil stain on the ground, and the lube points were practically covered by caked-on dirt.
He came out from under the cab. “She’s a mess.”
The florid man grinned around his cigar, and spread his hands. “For the price?” he said. “Come on back to the office.”
Parker went with him back to the office. The florid man started to say, “I know she don’t look–-” when Parker turned around and went back out again. The florid man looked startled. “Hey! Where you goin’?”
Parker went around to the side of the building again. A kid in a greasy coverall had the hood open. There was a battery on the ground beside the cab, and he was getting set to attach the jumper cables.
The florid man came heavily around the corner. “Now, listen here, buddy.”
Parker turned to him. “I want a new battery,” he said. “And new plugs. And fresh oil. And a lube. And enough lights on the box so I don’t get stopped by state troopers.”
The florid man was shaking his head, chewing more rapidly on the cigar. “That wasn’t the deal. As is, that was the deal, as is.”
“No deal,” Parker said. He walked around the florid man and started towards the street.
“Hey, wait a minute!”
Parker turned.
The florid man tried a smile that didn’t come off. “No sense goin’ off in a huff, buddy,” he said. “We can work somethin’ out. It might maybe cost you a little more, but just for the parts, not for the labour. I wouldn’t charge you for the labour.”
“Do like I said with it,” Parker answered, “and new radiator hoses, and I’ll take it for seven.”
“Seven! The deal was eight.”
“It isn’t worth eight. It’ll never be worth eight.”
“Now, buddy,” the florid man said, “you got a chip on your shoulder. Now, why don’t we just talk this over? Come on back to the office.”
“Tell your boy to put a new battery in.”
The florid man tried another smile. This one worked better. “Not a new battery, buddy, I wouldn’t try to snow you. But a better one than you got. Okay?”
“Good.”
“There you go. You see, we can get along.” He turned and shouted, “Hey, Willis! Never mind about that. Take that old battery out of there, and put that Delta in. You know the one.”
“And leave the engine off,” added Parker.
“Yeah, sure, buddy. Leave her off, Willis.”
Willis gathered up his battery and jumper cables and went back through the side door into the garage again.
Parker and the florid man went back to the office, and this time Parker sat down in the slat-bottomed wooden chair beside the desk. The florid man settled heavily into the swivel chair, making it squeal. “I can see you know about trucks, buddy.”
“I thought you wouldn’t snow me,” Parker said.
“Now, there’s that chip on your shoulder again.” He made a little tsk-tsk sound, and shook his head in a friendly sort of way. Then he pulled an order-blank pad and a pencil over. “Now, then. What else did you want?”
“Lube. Oil change. New plugs. Check the points. New–-“
“Points? Now, you keep adding something every single time.”
“Are you writing all this down?”
“I surely am.” The florid man wrote “points”, and asked, “What else?”
“New radiator hoses. And the legal minimum of lights.”
The florid man wrote, laboriously, chewing on his cigar. The cigar had gone out, but he kept chewing on it anyway. When he was done writing, he said, “Now, let’s see. Lube and oil change, I guess I can do that all right. And plugs, well, we can check ‘em out, clean ‘em up a little. But I don’t see any way we could give you new ones.”
“New ones,” Parker said.
“Now, buddy.” The florid man spread his arms. “I give a little, you give a little.”
“Tell me about that Delta,” Parker said. “The one you’re giving me.”
The florid man cocked his head and sucked on the cold cigar. Then he smiled again. “New plugs. I just might be able to do it.”
“That’s fine.”
“Okay, now, let’s see what else we got. The points. Well, sure, that’s no problem. And those hoses.” He nodded slowly, the cigar moving around in his mouth. “I noticed them myself, but I don’t think I got hoses like that in stock. I tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll have Willis tape them up solid with friction tape. What do you say? You won’t leak a drop.”